


Changing the Sound of Your Name

by agrotera



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Found Family, Human Outsider, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 08:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18517867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agrotera/pseuds/agrotera
Summary: “You’re going to need a name.”It was the first thing she said to him when they stumbled out of the Void. You’re going to need a name. Emerging from the dark into what promised to be a lifetime of questions impossible to answer, and she broached the hardest one first.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-post of a fic I deleted some months ago. I was worried someone in my real life had found my work. I'm still worried! But maybe I also don't care anymore. In any case, I'm sorry for doing that, and I'm sorry if you missed this fic!

_In our days, we will say what our ghosts will say._

_We gave the world what it saw fit, and what'd we get?_

_Like stubborn boys with big green eyes, we'll see everything._

 

~

 

“You’re going to need a name.”

It was the first thing she said to him when they stumbled out of the Void. _You’re going to need a name._ Emerging from the dark into what promised to be a lifetime of questions impossible to answer, and she broached the hardest one first.

“I have no use for a name,” he said. He tongue was thick in his mouth, dry and unwieldy. The words did not come easily, or quickly, not as they had in the Void. It took effort to remember those unfamiliar sounds.

And she laughed. “I have to call you something.”

Her laugh was like dry kindling cracking. A sound he hadn’t heard in four thousand years, and hers was the first.

“What did you call me before?” He asked.

Their feet crunched through deadwood and underbrush as she led them down the mountain. They were going back—back to Karnaca.

“You’re not the Outsider anymore, so I can’t call you that.”

Dappled shadow spread across the forest floor. Every glittering dance of light on leaves made his breath catch in his throat. When they’d emerged from the bowels of Shindaerey, she’d let him go first. And when he couldn’t make himself, she’d nudged him gently in the back. ‘Go on,’ she’d said. And he did. The light burned his eyes.

“You had another name for me.”

“What, ‘black-eyed bastard?’ I can’t call you that one, either—your eyes aren’t black.”

“What color are they?”

“You don’t remember?”

He answered with silence. He hadn’t realized he couldn’t remember until she’d posed the question. What else had he forgotten? Besides the obvious.

“They’re green, I think.” She spoke slowly, with thought. Her gaze lingered on his face.

He wondered what she saw, and he feared it. Then he felt a surge of joy to know again that familiar feeling, fear—then another surge of joy to know that he felt joy, again, too, and could recognize it among all the other coiling, churning feelings he couldn’t name that twisted like eels in his gut.

“No, I was wrong.” She stopped him with a hand on his arm.

It was the mechanical hand made of splintered bone and copper wire, gears and leather. The hand he’d taken. She stared hard into his face, her one eye dark, the other—gone. He’d taken that, too.

Then her gaze softened, and she almost smiled. “Hazel,” she said. “They’re hazel.”

Beneath the canopy of trees, the air was cool. A breeze coming down off the mountain’s peak ran its ghostly fingers through his hair. It moved across his skin like a living thing. So different from the Void, where nothing lived at all.

Hazel. He didn’t remember the color, but the sound felt good on his tongue, by turns soft and sharp. But it wasn’t a name. At least, it wasn’t his.

“You don’t remember?” Sun streaming through the canopy limned her in light, made her shimmer at the edges, like a mirage.

He remembered so little of his life before his death, he couldn’t know what exactly it was he’d forgotten. How could you quantify a lifetime? Made from as many memories as there had been moments, as many memories as breaths he’d taken. And they were gone, all of them. Except the one, the only memory that mattered. The one he couldn’t face, at least not there, halfway down a mountain, an assassin at his side. _His_ assassin. The woman who’d come to kill him and, then, strangely, hadn’t.

He felt her warmth as his side. Her smelled her breath. She was alive.

He looked at his hands. They spread before him, pale and bloodless. He touched them palm to palm and felt his own chill. He was possessed by the sudden image of himself as a ghost, only now he haunted the light, no longer a specter, untethered and wandering the bottomless dark. It was his turn now to haunt a different plane.

“When you first—when you came to, you said you heard it, Daud’s voice in your ear. What did he say?”

A rasp, a whisper. A stirring. Blood on his tongue. Blood behind his eyes, pounding. A clench in his chest. He’d stumbled forward. She’d caught him. A man, a shadow, drifting away. The memory, the sound. His name. It left with the voice. Daud had given it to him, then he’d taken it away.

“I don’t remember.” Such simple words for so vast an emptiness. “But I remember yours, Billie Lurk.”

She took her hand off his arm and started back down the trail. When he didn’t follow, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “That’s not my name, you know.”

So much energy he spent just remembering to breath. In the Void, he hadn’t needed to. No one breathes in the Void, not the dead, the gods, the dreaming. The Void breathes into _you._

She waited for him. It took him too long, that complicated mess of remembering to breath and speak and walk. Then to do it all at once, to play at life, to do the work of being anything other than a ghost—it exhausted him.

“Billie Lurk. Meagan Foster. Those are… shrouds, I guess, that I borrowed to move through the world. A fucked-up kid’s dream of safety, or a better life. They are not my name.”

“What is it, then?”

“I don’t remember,” she said, and grinned.

 

#

 

“It’s not much, but it’s home enough.”

Billie shoved open the door to the abandoned flat she’d made her roost. She ushered him inside, kicked the door closed behind her, and dropped her gear on the floor.

Wallpaper, once stately in rich blues and creams, curled away from the wall in strips. Dead plants in cracked pots dropped brown leaves on the balcony. Threadbare rugs hid scuffed hardwood. A desk strewn with ragged maps and stacks of crumpled paper listed precariously to the right. Cedar pollen floated in on the wind and coated every surface in a thin film of yellow dust. A steamer trunk, one buckle broken, did its level best to mimic a bed. And in the center of it all sat a big red chair, the only thing not in a state of utter disrepair.

Billie sank into the chair with a groan, skeletal fingers kneading the meat of her right thigh. He stood near the door, quite at a loss for what to do, and watched instead the people trundling by on the street below.

“What do you think?” She asked.

Karnaca was a city he’d known well in the dreams and terrors of those he watched, a place he’d lived in through the eyes of those few who’d interested him. His knowledge of the city was patchwork, gleaned from the touch of those he’d branded, and almost unbearably intimate in its specificity.

Across the street, the conservatory loomed.  Through Billie, he’d felt the cool metal of an Overseer’s mask against his palm as she’d drowned him in the conservatory’s fountain. As Emily, he’d felt the clammy, yielding flesh of a witch when she’d tossed her down an elevator shaft. He even remembered when Delilah had caressed the cool glass of its near-endless display cases, marveling at the baubles within, whispering to no one to herself that they would all be hers one day.

The weight of those accumulated memories pulled at him, his body suddenly too heavy to stand. He grasped at the door frame like a drowning man and tried to remember to breathe.

“Kid?”

It’s what she’d decided to call him. _Kid._ He didn’t like it, but he didn’t protest; there were worst names to be given, after all. And of those, he’d had many.

“Karnaca looks the same, but it feels different to watch it with mortal eyes, like I see it through a body that isn’t mine. I’m… overwhelmed. ”

She snorted. “I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

“I don’t know what to do.” He hated how feeble he sounded, how frightened and weak.

Billie kicked her feet up over the arm of the chair and looked out through the balcony door to the conservatory.

He wondered if she was remembering then the same things he had—drowning the Overseers, stealing their faces, tossing the Sisters around like rags dolls with that—that fucking _knife_. He wondered if those memories weighed on her, too. If they did, he couldn’t tell. If they didn’t, he’d have to ask her how.

She sighed. It was a bone weary, unsteady exhale—one he’d come to know well in the time he’d spent watching her. She gave him a strange look he’d only ever seen her give to Daud.

“You’re a real boy now. You can do whatever you want.”

He sank slowly to the floor, legs shaking. His tall boots felt too tight, the cut of his jacket too close. He’d lived so long outside his body. Now, he felt like he barely fit, like bits of him threatened to spill over the border, bleed through the edges, run like water-stained ink down a page.

She looked back at the conservatory. “You want to stay in Karnaca, you can. We’ll find you a place, or you can take this one when I go.

“You could travel. See how the world’s changed since you lived in it. Though, I suppose you’ve seen it all, in a way.”

A bitter chuckle.

“And if you liked being a god, well, no doubt there’s a flock for you to tend. Show up, tell them you’re the Outsider, and you’d have them falling at your feet.

“Or you could come with me.”

His heart—what a strange thing to have—beat a little faster. “Where?” He asked.

She looked back at him, the beginnings of a smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Dunwall.”

There was nothing for him in Dunwall. But then, there was nothing for him in Karnaca, either. Just bad memories, old memories, memories that didn’t quite belong to him but lived in his head all the same. Karnaca, a city built on the bones of _his_ ancient city, was veined through with rot and greed and darkness.

Not that Dunwall was much better, he knew. He’d seen enough through Corvo’s eyes to—

Oh.

_Corvo._

Corvo lived in Dunwall.

With Emily.

He spoke only with those he’d marked, or who had stolen his mark, and nearly all of them were dead. Vera Moray. Delilah, curse her name. The boy from the streets. _Daud_. Once Billie returned to Dunwall, then all the people he knew in the world, all three of them, would be in one place, and that place was not Karnaca.

“Kid?”

He looked up, blinking.

“You don’t have to decide right now. I still need to find a boat, and besides—“ Her stomach growled. “—I could use a good meal before I go.”

She levered herself out of the chair and stretched with a groan.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get something to eat.”

 

#

 

 Karnaca at night. For thousands of years, he’d watched it from the Void. But the experience of traversing it with his own feet was something different altogether.

There was no breeze in the Void, for one thing, no fresh breath of wind carrying with it the smell of fish, salt sea, incense, the astringent burn of whale oil. No, the Void smelled like creosote and petrichor, ozone and oil. It clung to your skin, a stifling, damp embrace from the dark.

But Karnaca—Karnaca had wind aplenty. It roared down from Shindaerey in irregular bursts and coated the city in choking dust. It galloped in from the sea and carried with it towering storm clouds fat with rain. Karnaca perched at the edge of the world and watched the slow rotation of the earth, always a breeze stirring its hair.

Out on the street, they kept to the shadows. And from the shadows, Billie’s face watched them, framed up in wanted posters plastered on notice boards and empty walls, her mouth always set in a bored frown. It felt like walking through a gallery where he was the object on display, and with every new instance of Billie’s face they passed, he heard her voice:

_You’re going to need a name._

Did he?

In Cyria Gardens, night birds called and insects buzzed. Overseers  and Grand Guardsmen patrolled the streets, each group loitering in pooling lamplight and muttering to themselves about the other, never quite at ease. It lent a frisson to the air that set his teeth on edge, and he was glad when they left the district behind.

Billie took them down through the city by foot. They slithered through open windows into abandoned apartments and crept down narrow alleyways. He hid in her shadow when guards passed by and moved only when she did. To follow another, to not have to think for himself, to let his mind go quiet, calm, empty and listen only to the sound of his own breathing—the freedom buoyed him on a sea of relief.

“Not too many people know your face, but one’s more than enough Eyeless here to get us both in trouble,” she’d told him. “Keep hidden, keep quiet, and if anyone stops us, for fuck’s sake—let me do the talking.”

“I’ve watched you work, Billie Lurk.” He smiled at the terrible rhyme. “You speak with weapons, not words.”

Though she only glared in response, when she turned away, he saw a small smile spread across her face, illuminated by the diffuse light of a nearby open window. If he closed his eyes and listened carefully, he could just hear a deep voice singing and another laughing somewhere beyond the window’s frame.

He looked up at the window, at the open windows all around them, and tried to imagine the lives lived out in each of them. Once, he might have watched them all from the Void and flitted from to other, always searching for someone interesting, something new.

He’d looked for hinges, people on which the lives of others hung and turned. He sought people whose actions forced action in others, forced them to move, to act, who lives were at a crux. They wielded power, whether they knew it or not, and he had watched them each to see how they would use it.

The fate of an empire had turned on the slash of Corvo’s knife, and again on Emily’s. Had either of them made different choices, much would be have changed.

Their choices were but some among the many he saw from the Void, just as he had seen the spread of Billie’s choices long before she made them. Even if he didn’t know which exactly she would make in the end, he had known he must give her the tools to make them.

She took them down to the bay where the buildings advanced like a slow-growing mold across the waterfront. They moved quickly here—what few guards they saw were playing dice outside a bar, the rest no doubt stationed in a one of the ritzier districts up the hill—and soon came to a darkened stairwell leading down from the street.

Billie took the steps two at a time and banged her fist on the door at the bottom. A slit opened in the door, and two dark eyes peered out .

“Whatsa passcode?”

“Open the door, Cirio, before I kick it down.”

“Come on, Billie. Alina’ll kill me if I don’t play by the rules. Gots kids to feed.”

“There’s no woman in the world dumb enough to sleep with you. Are you going to open the door or not?”

Cirio narrowed his eyes and peered into the darkness over Billie’s shoulder. She tensed but didn’t turn around.

“Who’s that with you?” He growled.

“A friend. Hurry up, Cirio, I got shit to do.”

He shook his head. “Pass. Code.”

“FINE. ‘Luca Abele sucks whale dick.’ You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?”

“Why ya think I don’t got any kids?” He slid the window shut with a bang and opened the door. A sliver of light spilled into the stairwell.

“Who’s the kid? Looks awfully familiar.” He squinted. Cirio was a big man with a big head and small eyes. When he squinted, he bore a striking resemblance to a rotting melon.

“None of your fucking business.” Billie clapped Cirio hard on the shoulder, and he staggered back with grunt and muscled past him through the door. “How about you let Alina know I’m here.”

“Aye aye.” He stepped nimbly past her and trundled off down the dim hall and disappeared through a far door.

The distant sounds of fiddle and piano drifted toward them from the back of the building.

Billie watched Cirio go, then turned on him with a small smile. “I glad to learn you can follow directions.”

“Oh, may I talk now?

“No longer a god, but still a smart ass, I see.”

“Where are we?”

“Canning district. You can’t smell it?”

He didn’t respond, only wrinkled his nose and looked away.

She chuckled. “We’re at a friend’s place. Bootleg liquor, good music, and the best fried hagfish in Karnaca.” She canted her head to the side, examining him. “Do you think you can handle some food?”

He felt a vague sense of unease and couldn’t remember if that were hunger or some other fundamentally human feeling he’d forgotten. “How do you know her?”

“Full of questions, aren’t you?” She shook her head. “I used to do some runs for her—Dunwall to Karnaca, mostly. Went to Wynnedown a couple times.” She shrugs. “Really, we’re just old friends.”

“Billie!” A stout black woman in a screaming red dress rocketed down the hall and engulfed Billie in a bone-crushing hug. “Outsider’s bony ass, what are you doing back in the Shining Shithole of the South?”

Billie returned the woman’s hug with a quick kiss on the cheek and wriggled out of her grip. “I’ve been busy. Listen, I need a favor.”

“Wouldn’t be a visit from you if you didn’t.” Alina beamed. “Hey, who’s the kid?” She looked him up and down, then turned on Billie with her arms crossed and an eyebrow cocked.

“Protégé. Kid, meet Alina. Alina, meet the kid.”

“Any friend of Billie’s a friend of mine.” Alina folded him into a crushing hug, too. “Don’t let her push you around, eh? She can be one helluva task master.”

He stood frozen in her arms. Her warmth was like a flame across his skin. Billie had held him in the Void, just briefly. But no one had touched him like this, with kindness, since… not for a long time.

She ruffled his hair, released him with a satisfied _hmph!,_ and linked her arm in Billie’s. They started off down the hall.

“Since when d’you take on students?”

“I felt like it was time.”

“Billie Lurk, are you feeling _nostalgic?_ ”

Their voices receded down the hall.

He stood beneath the hall’s dim light and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. How strange it was to be alive.

 

#

 

The club’s hall was long and narrow. In classic Karnacan fashion, its decorations spoke to a distant, more prosperous past. Shabby chandeliers dressed in cobwebs hung from the ceilings, uneven tables with worn tops spread across the floor, and the curtains hanging on either side of the stage were ratty and thin.

Musicians tuned their instruments on the stage. Lovers leaned over narrow tables and spoke in whispers. Friends meeting for a bite and a drink after a shift at the cannery hollered and ribbed one another.

For all that it was full of people, the club felt safe. He liked it immediately.

Alina bustled them over to a table deep in the hall between the stage and the exit door.

“Thanks, Lina.” Billie squeezed her forearm and sat with a grunt.

“I never forget a patron’s favorite table.” She winked.

“Hey, you never know—“

“—when you’ll need to make a quick exit.” Alina laughed. “More’n once that instinct of yours has saved my ass, Billie. I’m not about to distrust it now.” She squeezed Billie’s shoulder. “Relax. Listen to the music. Safia’s is singing tonight, got a voice like a songbird. I’ve been trying to book her for months.”

As she and Billie chatted amiably, he examined the patrons. Without his view from the Void, he found them difficult to examine. When once he would have peered at them through the murk and seen all their tawdry little secrets, now he saw nothing but them as they were in just that moment. Where his Void sense had been was just a hole, a lacuna. It was damnably disorienting.

He was suddenly bereft. He’d given Billie the tools to come for him. He’d hoped that she might kill him. But she’d given him a different kind of freedom instead, and looking all around him, he wasn’t sure if he was grateful for it. He hadn’t expected to live with this strange emptiness, and now that he had to, he wasn’t sure if he could do it, or even wanted to.

Alina dropped a plate in the middle of the table and thudded two pints of beer beside it.

“Better eat while it’s hot. You know how hagfish gets,” Alina said, grinning. She placed a small kiss on the top of Billie’s head, then whispered something in her ear. Billie nodded, mouthing ‘Thank you.’ Alina retreated to the bar and immediately began hassling a man so deep in his cups he’d evidently fallen asleep.

“You have interesting ‘friends’, Billie Lurk.”

She glanced at him sidelong and burst into throaty laughter. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” She hefted one of the beers and leaned toward him. She waited, and when he did nothing in return, she knocked his elbow with hers and nodded toward the second beer. “Pick it up.”

He picked it up. Behind Billie, the band began to play.

“To second chances,” she said, and clinked their glasses together. A little wave of beer sloshed over the rim and spilled on his hand.

“To second chances.”

 

#

 

The journey back to Billie’s roost was quicker and more confusing than their journey to Alina’s place. Minutes passed in flashes of colors and bursts of sounds. For the second time, Billie caught him before he fell, and together they stumbled through her door.

“I should have known you’d be a lightweight.” She shouldered the door closed and let him go. He stumbled forward, just catching himself on the back of her big red chair.

His head swam. He felt like a stoppered bottle bobbing in the sea, tossed about by forces out of his control.

The room was painted by the glow of lamplight and the beginning blush of morning. Billie straightened her jacket, checked that the door was locked, and went out onto the balcony.

He watched her go, bleary-eyed.

She disappeared for a moment, then popped her head back around the balcony door. “Do you think you could make it onto the roof?”

He hiccupped. “If a washed-up old assassin like you can do it, I don’t see why I can’t.”

She drew her brows together in a scowl. “Oh, now your true colors out.”

He followed her onto the balcony on unsteady feet. She showed him where to put his hands, and together they climbed up the rickety lattice on the side of the building. Dead leaves slid under their feet and fell onto the balcony below. At last, Billie levered herself up onto the blessedly flat roof and offered him her hand.

“Hurry up, show’s starting.”

She pulled hard just as he crested the edge of the roof, and he tumbled forward, knocking her over. In the jumble, she landed an elbow in his ribs, knocking the wind out of him.

“Oof. You’re heavier than you look,” she groaned.

“So you are,” he managed to wheeze.

“I’m starting to think maybe I should have left you in the Void,” Billie grumbled. Then she helped him up.

Even as he tried to catch his breath, he smirked.

She went to the opposite end of the roof and leaned up against the side of the low wall there. The whole of Karnaca spread below them, still wrapped in the grey shadows of sleep. Dawn cast its grasping fingers across the horizon.

Though her face looked drawn in the anemic light, her expression was warm. She’d gone back to wearing the black eyepatch, he noticed, but he couldn’t remember when she’d put it on.

She _could_ have left him in the Void, he knew. Could have killed him, like he’d wanted her to.

“But you didn’t leave me in the Void,” he said.

“Yeah.” She looked at out the horizon. “That okay with you?”

He followed her gaze. Whaling ships cut across the bay. From this distance, they looked no larger than ants in their teeming dance on the surface of the sea.

“Yeah,” he said at last.

She looked at him, then she nodded sharply. She was quiet for a few moments. Just as the sky was growing pink, she turned to him again.

“Alina’s got a boat for me and goods needing delivery to Dunwall.” She looked back at the bay and rubbed a hand across her eyes. Exhaustion hung heavy on her in the set of the shoulders, in the dip of her chin. “Could use a first mate,” she said.

He leaned over the wall and closed his eyes. The rising sun was warm on his face, and the ever-present breeze was cool. He looked down. Karnaca rolled down the foothills toward the sea. He tasted the salt in the air and listened to the cry of sea birds. He’d lived there—well, a long past version of ‘there.’ He’d died there. And then he’d lived again.

The fried hagfish sat heavy in his gut. The beer clouded his thoughts. A wave of exhaustion rose in him and threatened to carry him away. Still, he could feel it: something waited for him in Dunwall. A future, maybe. Or a name. And Karnaca—Karnaca would always be there.

“When do we leave?” He asked.

“As soon as we figure out how to get off this roof,” Billie said, and smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

After nearly two weeks at sea, he was a hair’s breadth away from leaping overboard. And he might have, if he had the strength. But he could hardly lift a glass of water to his parched lips, let alone heave himself over the railing of Billie’s borrowed ship, the _Last Chance_. The ever-present nausea of oppressive seasickness kept his feet planted firmly to the deck.

The only things that made him feel any better were the fresh air above deck and the braid and bob of gulls in the ship’s wake. That, and the whales. There were fewer of them than he remembered, and the ones he caught breaching from time to time were smaller than the ones that existed in the hazy memories of his previous life.

“Feeling any better?” Billie leaned against the ship’s railing and watched him, arms crossed. Though he only caught a glance of her, too ill to take his eyes off the horizon, he could have sworn she smirked.

“Yes. Wonderful. Can’t you tell?” He spoke quickly, his words clipped. He might have been afraid to open his mouth for fear he’d vomit, but his stomach was empty. He’d done plenty vomiting already.

He hazarded another look at Billie. Definitely smirking.

The ship dipped into the trough between waves. It rode up the back of a wave, crested it, and plunged down again. With each dip and rise, his stomach lurched.

Though he was pricked by a needle of irritation each time she teased him, he couldn’t begrudge Billie her fun. In truth, the teasing was a marked improvement over her mood of the preceding days.

“ _You’re_ clearly feeling better,” he said.

She waited a few beats, then nodded.

She’d been fine at the start. While he’d spent their first few days at sea either lying prone on the floor of his narrow berth or on his knees vomiting into a bucket, Billie had been at the helm, her eye bright and a broad smile plastered across her face.

When night came, she’d drag his boneless body onto deck to show him the stars. ‘You can’t see them like this in the city,’ she’d said, and thumped him too-hard on the back. Though all he could muster for her was a wan smile, he did appreciate the gesture. From the Void, he’d seen with the sight of others, and those who had interested him most had tended to keep their eyes on the gutters. He couldn’t remember ever seeing the stars through Corvo, or Emily, or Daud.

He discovered the stars had changed since he’d last seen them with living eyes, and he no longer recognized the shapes they drew in the sky. One more thing he’d lost, then. Ah, well.

As the days wore on, Billie’s demeanor had begun to change. She’d woken screaming in the night, then snarled at him when he inquired after her well-being. Before long, she wouldn’t look him in the face or even speak to him. And he hadn’t been able to understand why.

 They’d managed to forge something of a camaraderie back in Karnaca, a fact that had pleased him more than he wanted her to know. He found her sudden change, her distance, all the more disconcerting for it. He thought back to everything he’d said between the time she’d carried him from the Void and led him onto the ship, and he came up with nothing. He didn’t know what he had done, but he clearly had done something.

There had to be some vagary of human interaction he’d missed or a cue he’d failed to pick up on. Not for the first time, he wished he could watch her from the Void. There, he’d persisted beyond the bounds petty human power, nigh-on untouchable. He’d used the unfortunate reality of his existence to listen to her thoughts and peer into her dreams. All that he had done and said to her had proceeded from the knowledge he’d gleaning from that spying.

But in the living world, he could only use his voice to reach her, and it was a tool he hadn’t quite yet mastered. He had no power but for what he could manifest with his own hands and force of will, and it was little indeed. Frustration built in him like a storm on the horizon and found no outlet.

They’d persisted that way for nearly a week—him half-dead with seasickness, confused and stymied, and Billie stewing in the bridge, strangling the neck of a bottle of cheap bourbon with her mechanical hand and clutching at an empty tumbler with the other—neither of them speaking.

It had been an altogether miserable journey.

He imagined their arrival, and a little seed of fear bloomed in him. She could leave him at the docks and make him find his own way, and he couldn’t really blame her for it. She’d never asked to be responsible for him, after all, and now she’d made it obvious she didn’t want to be.

For four thousand years, people had been beholden to _him._ They’d begged _him_ for aid, guidance, mercy. Now, he was forced to ask for the same from someone else. And he hated that, how sick with loneliness he felt to know he was a burden on others and know, too, that he would continue to be a burden on the people he’d used.

Billie cleared her throat and bumped him in the shoulder, but she seemed to have nothing to say, only stared with him at the rolling waves. They were near to Dunwall now, he knew. By the way Billie stalked about the ship, cursing at piles of paper, he figured they might arrive by evening. When she would leave him.

“Listen,” Billie said. Her voice rasped from days without use. “I know I’ve been a pain in the ass the last few days. You deserve an explanation.”

He tensed and waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. Her brows were knit in thought, her one hand twisting about the other. She seemed to be searching for the right words.

“When you—when you took my arm—“ she turned her right hand over, closed it into a fist and opened it again, “—when you took my _eye_ —“ she grimaced, “—I thought, ‘I’m gonna delight in wringing that little bastard’s neck.’ And I wanted to. You don’t know how badly I wanted to.

“Now you’re _here_ , impossibly, and I can’t stop thinking about that night you appeared on the ship. Maybe—maybe what you did was right. I deserved it. Betraying Daud, all the people I’ve hurt, even the bad people who had it coming—I took things from them, their lives, their freedom. This—“ she flexed her hand, the tight leather creaking, “—this is the least of what I deserve.”

She turned to him. The bag beneath her right eye was so dark the socket looked almost bruised. Her skin was dull, her expression drawn. Haunted.

“I’d dreamed about it, before. Every night for weeks. I knew it was coming. I knew what you’d do. I don’t know how I knew; I just _did._ But still, I—“ She set her mouth in a hard frown and looked away. “I haven’t been able to forgive you.”

So, they were to have _this_ conversation, then.

His chest hurt. He began to sweat.

Well, they would have had to eventually. Better to get it over with now and let them part ways in Dunwall. A clear break for them both. But the prospect made him despair.

“You shouldn’t.” He ground the words out.

“What?” Her brows drew closer together, incredulous.

Had she expected him to justify it? Had she… wanted him to? He couldn’t.

“Don’t forgive me.” He ducked his head. “It was a selfish, childish act, and I shouldn’t have done it.”

She stared at him a long time, so long he had to look away lest he muster the last of his strength and hurl himself into the sea in shame.

“I do know how badly you wanted to kill me. ‘The Void touches the dreaming and the dying alike,’ I told you.”

She chuckled bitterly. “How could I forget a line like that.”

He flushed. “Your dreams are loud, twisting, wild things, Billie Lurk. They reach for the Void, a hundred little grasping tentacles dense with anger and regret. The Void wanted to understand you, so it brought your dreams to me. I know them… better than I’d like.”

“Well, _that’s_ creepy.” Her forced humor hurt him more than it should have. After all, it _was_ creepy—the way he’d watched her, watched Corvo and Emily and Daud. He’d seen enough of their lives to feel he knew them, and yet they knew him not at all.

A shrug. A smile. The fervent hope that he wouldn’t need to suddenly find a bucket to vomit in. “The first few hundred years I couldn’t control the Void at all. I saw everything it wanted me to see—every paralyzing nightmare, every final thought. I listened to the last words of a million desperate, dying people. They poured out of Void until I choked on them, tied beneath a faucet I couldn’t turn off. As nations rose and fell, I went quietly mad. And no one cared.

“It was centuries before I learned to influence the Void, and centuries more before I learned to bend it to my will. By the time you came along, I _was_ the Void. I saw with its own dark eyes—into your dreams and the dreams of others.”

“And what did you see?” She whispered. The wind caught up the short wisps of her hair and nearly took her words, too.

“One desperate girl among thousands, determined not to become just another bit of fodder for the rapacious machine of empire. But you had a singular focus and an indomitable drive to escape that the others like you lacked. So you had my attention.

“In the years to come, I touched Daud’s mind and found it a writhing rat king of fear and resentment. It disgusted me, terrified me. But I gave him my mark, the ability to draw from the Void, to get to you.”

“Why not give it to me?” Anger, long-stoked, burned behind her eye.

“You wouldn’t have become the person you are if you had.”

She stepped away from him. “ _Why?_ Why would you care?”

He saw her fear, and it hurt him, but he needed her to know. She deserved that, at least, for all he’d done to her.

“You were the only one who could kill me,” he said.

“If Daud had lived, he would have—“

He shook his head. “Oh, do not misunderstand, Billie Lurk. Daud harbored great hatred for me, a loathing so deep it radiated from him even in his sleep, his every bitter thought a slap I couldn’t turn away from. He _wanted_ to want to kill me.

“But he wouldn’t have done it, not in the end. He knew the ills of the world could not all be lain at my feet. They were human mistakes, human weaknesses, and I was not human any longer.

“I think he was half in love with me near the end. How that must have repulsed him, to want a creature he so loathed.” He hid his face in the crook of his arm. “But in you I saw a way out. You loved him like a father and betrayed him like one, too. And you were willing to shift the earth off its axis to take it all back and earn his forgiveness. You might even kill a god.”

She shoved a finger in his face. Shaking, she said: “You saw all that, did you? So, did I ever have a choice in any of this, or was it all some grand design you orchestrated? Maybe Daud was right—we’re all just toys to you.” Her words were acid, but they didn’t carry the sharp edge of anger he’d expected, just resignation.

“All of you had a choice. You always did. I only saw the potentialities that spread out from you like ripples in a pond. I could never know what you would do, only what you _might_ do. But I could influence you, just as I influenced anyone else.

“I wanted to die, Billie Lurk, and you wanted redemption. I gave you a chance at what you wanted and the tools to take it. Of course, I had to take something in return.”

“Nothing is ever free.” She spat.

“A lesson you learned well, and too young.” He worried the sleeve of his jacket. “The Void always exacts its price.” There was just one question left to ask, and then he will have said his piece. He wondered if Billie would ever speak to him again. He took a deep breath. The cold sea air burned in his lungs.

“Would you change it all, knowing what you know now?”

“Would Daud have lived?” She asked immediately.

He didn’t need the Void’s eyes to see the guilt and pain she harbored for not being there with Daud in the moment of his death. That had been his fault, too, for arguing with her over the ritual knife like a child. He’d only wanted to make her _see_.

“No,” he said. “In every eventuality, he died. Just as you all do.”

She went quiet. She wiped a hand across her eye, but he saw no tears there, only a bone-deep exhaustion that he shared.

“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

Relief came on like the first storm after a long drought. It wasn’t forgiveness that she gave him, but he didn’t care; he knew he didn’t deserve it, anyway. He just couldn’t have borne the thought of losing her.

“A legendary assassin’s star pupil and an undead god stripped of his power. Yes, Billie Lurk—we’re something special.”

She fingered the edge of her eyepatch, slid her nail along the seam. Then, slowly, tentatively, _perplexingly_ , she rested a hand on his. “You really are just a kid, aren’t you.”

They remained like that, side by side, until the sun was low on the horizon. Then Billie grabbed his arm and pointed.

“There it is,” she said. “Dunwall.”

 

#

 

A city of spires and stone, Dunwall straddled the mouth of the Wrenhaven River, and from there she ruled the isles. As the seat of the empire, Dunwall was bustling even at the night, and the harbor was no exception.

Billie waited for proper darkness before she attempted to bring the ship into port. Alina had loaned them a boat flying Dunwall’s flag with legitimate registration in Dunwall’s port, which was quite the boon, because as luck would have, they needed it.

They weren’t halfway across the harbor before a Harbor Watch boat puttered up alongside them and swung a blinding lamp across their bow.

“Oi!” A watchwoman called. “Inspection on behalf of the Empress. Cut the engines and drop a ladder. We’ll be comin’ aboard.”

“Sure thing!” Billie leaned over the side and called down. As soon as she turned away, she began muttering ‘ _fuck_ ’ under her breath like a chant. ‘ _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.’_

She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him aside.

“I don’t think she saw you. Do you think she saw you?” Billie hissed.

The bottom of his stomach dropped out. He wracked his brain, trying to remember if the watchwoman’s light had fallen on him. He didn’t think it had. But then, he’d been leaning on the opposite rail, watching the city loom into view and thinking about what awaited him there. He hadn’t been paying attention.

“Fuck,” Billie muttered and let his arm go. “I bet she did. The Harbor Watch might play like they’re a bunch of meatheads with clipboards, but they’re sharper than they let on. _”_

_“_ What about the cargo?” He whispered.

She looked at him, agog. “I didn’t start smuggling yesterday, kid. The cargo’s fine. What are we going to do with _you_?”

“You gonna let me up, or do I need to ask my friend here to impound your boat?” The watchwoman called from below.

“ _Fuck.”_ Billie rubbed at her forehead and frowned. _“_ Just… just stay here. Don’t make any sudden movements.” She gave him a stern look and hurried over to the railing. She threw the rope ladder down.

A few moments later, a gangly woman with ginger hair pulled herself over the side and stepped gracefully onto the deck. A muscle-bound man with a deep frown followed after her.

“Come on, Sarah, s’end of our shift. My wife’s got a fish stew waiting for me, n’ it’s colder’n the Void out here.”

The woman wheeled on him, lips pursed in a thin line. In the bright flash of her boat’s search light, her red hair made her head look like it was wreathed in fire. “I know you don’t give two half shits ‘bout your ‘career’, _Terry_ , but I’m not plannin’ to live off tinned hagfish and sour beer for the rest of my goddamned life, so put a sock in it and do your job.”

She turned away from him with an indignant jerk of her head and stuck her hand out to Billie. “Sergeant Collins, Harbor Watch. You are…?”

Billie smiled and presented her left hand. “Meagan Foster.”

Collins grunted in consternation, but he accommodated her without comment. They shook.

“Old injury,” Billie grinned. “You know how it is.”

Collins nodded. Sailors rarely made it to Billie’s age all in one piece. Collins cast an eye about the deck of the ship. “Manifest?” She asked, impatiently tapping her polished black boot.

Billie pulled a sheaf of papers from the breast of her jacket and pressed them into the woman’s palm. “I hope everything’s in order, Sergeant Collins.”

“Oh, just a routine check. Terry, go inspect the hold.”

“As you command, your Eminence,” he said, rolling his eyes, and disappeared down the stairs inside the bridge. The sounds of his off-key whistling floated up from below.

“Ingrate,” Collins huffed. She thumbed through the pages, taking careful note of each one, then looked at Billie with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t see any record of other crew or passengers here.”

Collins put a hand on her hip and tilted her head in his direction. “What’s your story?” But before he could answer, she shot a pointed look at Billie. “And _don’t_ tell me he’s your nephew or brother or some such nonsense. Kid looks like he hasn’t seen the sun in a decade. Just about glows in the dark.”

“What? I drafted the papers myself.” He frowned. “May I see them?” Standing beside Sergeant Collins, Billie turned her face away and tried not to laugh.

Collins crossed her arms. “Sure, but if you do something weird, I might shoot you. Just sayin’.” She tapped the gun at her waist.

“Right. Naturally.” He took the pages from her and made a show of reading them slowly. When he’d guessed enough time had passed, he painted a look of horror on his face and turned to Billie. “Ah, Boss, uh—”

Billie tried to glare at him, but the twitch at the corner of her mouth gave her away. “You fucked up the paperwork again, didn’t you?”

He hung his head. “Yeah.”

Billie rolled her eyes exaggeratedly and snapped the papers from his hands. “I told your ma there wasn’t any use teaching a deckhand to read—looks like I was right.

“Listen here, Jack. You listening?”

He nodded, head still hung low.

“Good. No more of these fuck-ups, or I’ll flay your ass raw and send you back to the cannery so fast they’ll mistake your carcass for whale meat and package you instead. Understand?”

He nodded again, meek as a lamb.

With a long-suffering sigh, Billie organized the pages of the shipping manifest back into a neat little sheaf and handed them to Collins.

But Collins only shook her head and waved her off. “Keep ‘em. Rest of it seems to be in order.” She gave him one last look up and down, then leaned conspiratorially toward Billie. “I haven’t met a woman hasn’t had to work with a man or four too dumb to rub two sticks together, but he’s just a kid. Cut him some slack.”

Billie curled her lip at him in a look of mock disgust, then placed a hand gently on Collins’s forearm and smiled. “Maybe you’re right. Shouldn’t be so tough on him. That’s his mother’s job, after all.” Billie winked.

Collins gave her a toothy, lingering smile.

Just then, Terry emerged from the hold. He doubled over at the top of the stairs and paused to catch his breath, sounding like nothing so much as a bulldog choking on a gobbet of its own slobber.

“S’all good, your Emi—er, Collins. Sergeant Collins,” Terry said.

Collins rolled sighed and looked away, disgust evident in her wrinkled nose. “Right. Well.”

Collins stuck her left hand out this time, and Billie took it with a grin. “All seems to be in order. Welcome to Dunwall, Captain Foster.”

“Thank you, Sergeant Collins.”

Collins gave her a sharp nod, walked swiftly across the deck, then climbed back over the railing with a huff and disappeared down the ladder.

Billie was just about to release her long-held breath when Sergeant Collins poked her head back over the railing. “If you find yourself with a free evening while you’re in port, Captain Foster, I know a great place for fish stew.”

From below, Terry bellowed, “YOU’RE NOT BRINGING ANOTHER DATE TO MY HOUSE, COLLINS!”

Collins grinned. “Stop by the watch office. I’m there most nights.”

“I’M GONNA DRIVE THIS BOAT OFF WITHOUT YOU.”

“Alright, alright!” Collins winked, and disappeared for good. A few moments later, they heard the engine of the Harbor Watch’s patrol boat sputter to life. They pulled away from the boat and disappeared into the dark, leaving only the sounds of Collins’ and Terry’s arguing in its wake.

Billie stared at him from across the deck, her eye twinkling with mirth. The steady amber light rolling over the water from the city lit only half her face, giving a slightly horrified dimension to her obvious glee. She leaned heavily against the rail and tried to stifle a chuckle. It turned into a howl of laughter anyway.

“The _real_ tragedy here,” Billie said, gasping, “is I can’t even tell anyone the Outsider helped me get a date. No one would ever believe me.”

He couldn’t help by smile in return. “I’m not even certain I would believe you, and I was there.”

A beat later, he asked: “Jack?”

She tried to catch her breath. “It was literally… literally the first name I could think of. Do you like it?”

“No.” He grinned.

When they tied up at the docks, they were still laughing. Their mirth drew glares from the weary City Watchmen and stevedores lingering in the midnight port, but that only made them laugh the harder.


	3. Chapter 3

Once, while watching his marks as he so often liked to do, he had heard Emily remark that, in all the world, there was surely no city so dreary and dull as Dunwall. And Corvo had only groaned and told her that she hadn’t truly known dreary until she’d known Tyvia. He had never visited Tyvia, but he was hard-pressed to imagine a city grayer and more somber than the one that spread before him.

He stood at the ship’s railing and watched the city shake itself from sleep. Sailors’ voices rose with the sun. He pulled his borrowed cap—a gift from Billie—down low, and he listened to them greet the day.

“Aye, you right bastard, how’s the wife ’n kids? Little one still got the colic?”

“Been pissing pins and needles for a week.”

“Bloody fucking void, pay’s two hundred short!”

He watched them all through the day. He puzzled over their strange manners and superstitious gestures, their petty squabbles, bad dice rolls, damp cigarettes, and fights. They were real, unaffected, and utterly fascinating.

Just as the sun fell behind the spear of the clock tower, Billie passed him a hand pie filled with mutton and gravy and told him it was time to go. They would head for the Tower under the cover of dark, and, hopefully, find themselves an Empress, she said.

They made good time through the port and into the city proper. The evening streets were clotted with revelers, gangs of children, and hungry folk streaming toward the many cafes, taverns, and hot food stands that had sprouted up across the city in recent years. Whale oil lamps buzzed on nearly every street corner, countless moths a constellation cloud around them. Guards stood in amiable conversation, their eyes not even half on the streets. Indeed, he saw, the tenure of Emily’s reign had changed the tenor of the city, and he found he hardly knew the place where he’d first met Corvo.

They passed a band on the corner. He stopped to listen, entranced. A rangy boy, surely no more than twelve, played the fiddle, and a round-faced girl the accordion. Two others sang, and the crowd clapped. A cheerfully drunk pair of women even began to dance, their overly deliberate steps and shuffles broken only be the occasional kiss and laugh. The crowd cheered them on.

Billie took a bite of her pie and, with a full mouth, said: “So, have you given any more thought to a name?”

He hadn’t, and he didn’t particularly want to. ‘Kid’ had sufficed for a few weeks—why not a few more?

One of the dancing women caught her heel on a cobble and lost her balance. Her paramour caught her hand, and they both tumbled to the ground. The crowd erupted in laughter, and they stood shakily up, waved, and hobbled away, giggling into each other’s ears.

Had he known a love like that, carefree and joyful, even before he’d died? He tried to conjure the faces of past lovers and could not, couldn’t remember if he’d ever had any at all. Oh, he’d watched a handful of people during his time in the Void and wished to know them better, but he couldn’t imagine doing even that much now—pining or wishing. He was still getting reacquainted with food. He looked at the half-eaten meat pie still clutched in his hand, now long gone cold, and frowned.

“I’ll assume that’s a no,” Billie said, and rolled her eye. “Come on.” She tugged at his sleeve. “We should get going. Void only know how long it’ll take us to get in.”

Billie slipped into the shadows. He followed as best he could, but his mind was elsewhere. Through all the many long days of their journey between Karnaca and Dunwall, he’d been careful not to think about what would happen when he got there. Now the reality of it was upon him, and he didn’t know how to feel, what to think, what to do. He only knew that he had nowhere to go, and that the only people he knew lived in in Dunwall. That those people were the sitting Empress and her father was almost beside the point, as their roles meant little to him except in how it made his finding them the more difficult. He just needed someplace to _be_ for a while. A place to think and to learn how to be human again.

But now the question he’d long been avoiding loomed before him, as large and foreboding as a fortress made of granite, steel, and cement, and it was this:

What if they turned him away?

As they neared the tower, they were forced to slow, to hide and hold their breaths. Shadows were slim on the streets of the tower district, and guards and overseers were thick on the ground, especially for a city ostensibly at peace. He stored that observation away in the back of his mind. He tried shook off his worries; they had to be careful now.

It was well past midnight when they entered the Tower grounds. He was struck by an odd realization then, and he had to stifle a bark of laughter lest he give their positions away.

“Billie Lurk, do really you intend to _sneak_ _us_ into Dunwall Tower?”

She narrowed her brows and gave him a look that managed to convey both contempt and alarm.

“What, did you think we’d walk up to the front door and knock? ‘Hello, wanted assassin and dead god here, we’d like to speak to the Empress?’” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “They’d think us mad and give us over to the Abbey if they didn’t kill us on the spot. _I_ don’t care to spend the final hours of my life suffering the abysmal musical taste of the High Overseer, and Void only knows what they’d do with _you_.”

“How did you intend to get us inside, then? Because we’ve been crouching behind this bush for near on an hour at the least, and—“

“Shh. Just—shut up. I’ve got it under control.” She put a gloved hand over his mouth.

He thought seriously about biting her, just for the novelty of it, but refrained—for dignity’s sake.

She removed her hand and gave him a glare that dared him to speak. When he said nothing, she nodded, satisfied, then pointed to the two guards standing near what must be a servant’s entrance to the Tower.

“Our best bet is that door there, but we’ll need to deal with those two first.”

The two guards stood at attention. Between their hiding place and their targeted door roamed four additional guards. He smelled cigarette smoke from what must be a fifth, and a sixth wandered somewhere behind them, muttering to herself about being forced to work the night shift. If they managed to find their way into the Tower, it would be a miracle worthy of, well, himself. He felt a twinge of doubt in his chest. He scanned the grounds, and few found appropriate hiding places. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“I hear the gears turning in your creepy little head, kid.”

He almost retorted, but she put a finger to her lips and shook her head, _no_.

“All those centuries you spent spying on the people of the Isles, and you never learned to _see_. Look at the guard to the right of the servants’ door. She’s drunk. She’s doing an admirable job of keeping it together, but she sways on her feet and yawns when she thinks her partner isn’t looking. But her partner won’t notice anyway, because he’s only got eyes for the man at the eastern wall.”

He flicked his eyes between the guards. He didn’t see what Billie did, though he wanted to. “How could you possibly know that?” He asked.

She glared at him again, but for once didn’t tell him to close his mouth. “Every time the guard on the wall passes by our man at the door, he gives him a little wave, and the man at the door smiles.” She poked him in the ribs, then nodded up to the smoking guard on the roof above them. “The one up top isn’t even watching the courtyard. He’s staring out at the ocean.”

“What—?”

“Listen.”

They waited a few moments and heard only the sound of the wind rustling the dry leaves in the courtyard. A hacking cough split the silence, then.

“His coughing is quieter than it should be. He’s likely on the other side of the roof, enjoying the fresh air.”

He squinted up through the bush, trying to catch a glance of the inattentive guard, but all he saw were the guard’s clouds of smoke twisting in the breeze.

“The other three,” Billie said, “are on top of their shit. That might be a problem, but…” She flexed her right hand, the one he’d taken, wrought now of whale bone and void black and tiny, turning gears. A wisp of black smoke curled around her fingers. “It came back.”

A little shock of—of what he what he wasn’t even _sure_ —ran down his spine. Alarm? Jealousy? Longing? Regardless, he was compelled to reach for her hand and take it lightly in his. And to his surprise, Billie didn’t resist.

He could feel the Void in her. It clung to her glove like oil, as slick and as dark. When he pressed his bare fingers to her palm, he could almost hear through her the Void’s creak and whisper. But the more he reached for it, the further away it drew, and though he chased and chased—

“Hey. HEY!” Billie hissed.

He came back to himself with a start. She shook her hand out of his and stared at him, eyes wide.

“Leviathan’s bleeding eyes, you nearly broke my hand.” She opened and closed her fingers and watched him from under low, suspicious brows.

“Did it leave you when you took me away?” He asked.

“What?”

“You said it came back,” he whispered, his voice terribly soft.

She was still shaking out her hand. “Yes. For a while it just… receded, like the sea at low tide. I could tell it was there, but it was out of my reach.”

He wanted to touch her hand again.

“But now it’s back.” She clenched her fist, and he heard the crash of waves on far distant shores. “And it’s how we’ll get inside.” Purple light snaked from her fist. She looked at him, then peered out through the bush, then looked back at him. Her mouth was set in a thin line.

He didn’t like that look.

“So, this is going to be a little awkward. I don’t know if it’ll work. Just… bear with me.” In one smooth motion, she grabbed him about the waist, slung him over her shoulder with a grunt, and disappeared.

They reappeared twenty feet away, on top of the gazebo. Then she clenched her fist and they were gone again, then back, then gone. They cut across the courtyard in four blindingly fast jumps. They came to rest, finally, on the ledge above the servants’ door. Billie pulled a small stone from her pocket and tossed it in a wide arc across the courtyard. It landed on the flagstones with a clatter and bounced into a pile of dead leaves.

“What the fuck was that?” The guard with a crush on his colleague started forward. He prodded the drunk woman next to him. “Something’s up,” he hissed. “Stay here. I’m gonna check it out.”

The woman mumbled a reply and the guard trundled off. He met up with his friend from the eastern wall in the center of courtyard, and together poked and prodded at the bushes Billie and he had just left.

Billie brought them down to ground just beside and behind the drunk guard. With an agonizing slowness, she carefully loosed the key from the guard’s belt. The woman grumbled, stumbled forward a step, then stepped back, swaying. Billie took another pebble from her pocket and sent that one clattering off toward the now-unguarded eastern wall. The drunk guard jumped, then, peering into the dark, made her slow, uneven way toward the sound.

Billie set him on the ground beside her and unlocked the door. She cracked it open, checked to be sure that no one was on the other side, and slithered through.

He sat. For several long seconds, he sat beside the open door. He had no sense for up or down, and, in a daze, slumped back against the wall. Billie stared at him through the crack in the door, wild-eyed. Dimly, he recognized her panic, but it couldn’t quite reach him. He knew he had to get through the door. He let himself fall toward it, hoping that might get him halfway there. But he only sprawled in the doorway, unable to go any further. The flagstones, he noticed, were cool against his cheek.

Through half-shut eyes, he watched the drunk guard perform a lazy search of the eastern wall. Then, she turned around. It took her an agonizingly long time to realize something was amiss, but when she did, she wasted no time calling for the other guards.

He wanted to move. He knew he absolutely, definitely should move. But he couldn’t. Because every time Billie had grabbed hold of the Void, had bent the space around her to travel impossible distances, they didn’t move so much as the Void moved _them._ It pulled them out of physical space, threw them into the swirling, impossible mess of the space beyond, and then threw them back into the real world again.

Over and over again, she had plunged him beneath the frigid surface of the Void, and over and over again he’d resurfaced, gasping for breath. By the time they reached the door, he couldn’t tell what was real and what was Void. Everything was cast in a gauzy purple haze.

Then he was lifted again. Billie’s bony shoulder dug into his stomach. He could smell her sweat on her, her fear, and then he was plunged again into the endless, rushing stream of the Void, screaming against its suffocating press.

 

#

 

He came to beneath of a pile of linens. He groaned and sat up, his head swimming. A bundle of folded sheets tumbled to the floor. Billie, her ear pressed to the door, jumped.

“Oh, good. I thought you were dead.”

“No,” he moaned, head in his hands. “I only feel dead.”

He cast a look about the narrow room. That they were in a linen closet was clear enough, but he had no idea where. Had they made it inside Dunwall Tower? They must have. Then why…?

A swirl of voices and pounding footsteps crashed by outside.

“They went this way!”

“Are you certain?”

“Alert the Royal Protector!”

“On it!”

The footsteps and voices receded.

Billie let out a shaky sigh and turned on him. “What the fuck happened to you? You nearly got us killed.” She rubbed at her face. “ _This_ is why I work alone.”

He pulled a bundle of sheets over his face. Even the meager sliver of light leaking in from beneath the door was like a knife in his eyes. “I believe you tried to kill me,” he muttered from beneath his linen pile.

Billie grunted and toed him with her boot. “You—! You know what, fine. Fine. It’s fine. What’s a castle full of guards, anyway? We can talk about this later, _if we live_.”

She pressed her ear to the door again, listening. Then she shook her head. “We have to find the Empress before her guards find us. Can you walk?”

He struggled into a sitting position, then shakily pulled himself to his feet one shelf at a time.

“You can’t walk.”

“Give me a moment.”

“We don’t have a moment. Shit. Okay, Billie. Think. Empress, Empress, where might she be.”

“I beginning to wonder why we didn’t just send a letter.”

“Corvo and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms.”

“‘ _Dear Empress Emily,’_ I’d write. ‘ _It’s me, your old friend, The Outsider. I’ve experienced a rather alarming change in my circumstances, and—_ ‘”

“ _SHUT. UP._ ” She hissed. She pressed a hand against his mouth and shoved him against the shelves. “ _Someone’s out there.”_

He struggled to breath against the press of her forearm against his trachea and found it rather difficult.

“ _Billie, I can’t—“_

_“Oh, fuck.”_

_“Billie—!”_

_“Be ready to run_.”

The door slammed open.

Billie threw herself against him. His head snapped back, hitting a shelf with a crack. Through blurred vision, he saw the vague outline of a person in the doorway. Then the crushing weight of Billie against his chest was gone, and the figure had Billie by the throat. She snarled, scrabbling against the hand that held her. Black and purple smoke swirled down her arm. They struggled, their feet scuffing the hardwood. Then the figure shifted its weight and slammed Billie against the wall.

“Billie Lurk.”

The voice was deep, gravelly, and sounded terribly disappointed. He elbowed her hard in the stomach, knocking the wind from her, and let her crumple to the ground.

His mind buzzed, paralyzed. The man advanced on him in one step, knocked him back, and kneed him savagely in the gut. He doubled over, but was drawn up again, a thick forearm crushed against his chest. He felt the cold press of a blade against his throat.

“Don’t—!” Billie gasped out. She wheezed on her hands and knees, trying to catch her breath. “Corvo, don’t!”

Corvo, swathed in shadow, tipped his head back to catch the light. “Who,” he breathed, “are you?”


	4. Chapter 4

The light that streamed into the closet obscured the face of the man who had him by the throat, but he would have known him anywhere. Long, wild hair, the bone-shaking rumble of his voice, the middling height and broad shoulders, the sharp scents of sweat and fear and an incandescent rage—all unmistakably _him_.

“Hello, Corvo,” he whispered.

He swallowed. The blade Corvo held to his throat bit into his skin. A warm trickle of blood slid down the side of his neck. He hardly dared to breathe. Fear and a strange excitement thrilled down his bones.

Corvo brought his face closer, narrowed his eyes and frowned.

Another bead of blood rolled down his neck. It was a steady stream now, weeping in time with the beat of his heart. His vision narrowed until all he could see was Corvo’s featureless face and the glint of his blade where it caught the light. His heart slammed against his chest, and the blood came faster.

“Who…?” Corvo asked. The rage in his voice slowly gave way to wonder. Then Corvo’s eyes went wide, and his blade clattered to the ground. Corvo dropped him and stumbled back with a gasp.

He landed hard on his knees, coughing and gasping for breath, his wound all but forgotten in his need to breathe. When he could at last catch his breath, he looked up into the stricken face of Corvo Attano and mustered a shaky, wry smile.

“Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

Corvo stared at him, mouth agape. He looked for all the world like he’d seen a ghost.

There was a strong hand on his arm—it was Billie, sure and sturdy, and she helped him up. He stood on shaking legs. The collar of his undershirt was damp and stuck to his skin. He touched it and stared in wonder at the bright smear of red across his fingers.

He remembered in a flash the searing heat of the blade that killed him as it slid across his throat. He remembered in exquisite, unbearable detail the ebbing away of his consciousness, each heartbeat pulsing a spray of blood across the ecstatic Eyeless who’d gathered around him. He remembered one last, gurgling breath as his body failed. And he remembered waking in the void, alone. Entombed.

Lights danced before his eyes. He worried he would faint.

Billie squeezed his shoulder and pushed him roughly behind her. Then she sighed, and the sound was loud enough to fill the room.

“Yes, it’s really him,” she said.

Corvo wavered in the doorway. He took a step back, then a half-step forward. He closed his left hand in a fist and held it hard against his side.

Billie reached behind her and found his hand. She squeezed it reassuringly.

“And yes,” she said. “I can explain.”

 

#

 

The apartments of Her Majesty the Empress were spartan, which reflected the mien of the Empress herself. She was tall and lean, her dark suit cut close. Her shoes were pointed in the current fashion, but they were well-worn, practical. Even then, well past midnight, she appeared put-together and possessed of an unusual grace.

She stood over him, concern knitting her unlined brow. Her style of dress brought out the severity in her face, made obvious the sharp edge to her jaw. She looked more fragile than he remembered—and so much younger.

She pressed a damp cloth to his neck and pursed her lips in a thin line. “I don’t see why you couldn’t have sent a letter.”

Billie leaned forward in the plush, wine-dark velvet chair, elbows on her knees, and rested her chin in her hands. She laughed a little. “Here I’d thought you’d grown out of that grating naïveté, Emily.”

Corvo shot Billie a heavy-browed look.

“Pardon me. My Lady Empress.” Billie corrected herself with a smirk.

It had taken a few hours, but Billie’d explained everything—why she was in Karnaca, how she’d found him, why she’d saved him. Emily had gasped and exclaimed at the right parts, but Corvo had only stared at him in stony silence.

Emily scowled and dabbed at the cut on his neck. The cloth came away red, and he couldn’t help but shiver. Not from pain, or disgust, or even discomfort—though the cut did hurt, there was no denying that—but at the vertigo that threatened to topple him right off his seat. He wondered somewhat idly if he were hungry, but he still wasn’t quite sure how to tell.

Billie cleared her throat. “For one, you wouldn’t have believed me. ‘The Outsider, walking the streets of Karnaca? But that’s impossible!’” Billie pitched her voice up to match Emily’s.

Emily rolled her eyes. Corvo crossed his arms and glared.

He realized then that couldn’t remember a time he’d ever seen Corvo smile. Perhaps when Emily was a small child? He hadn’t paid them such close attention then, to his regret.

“For another,” Billie continued, “the Royal Protector here would likely have burnt the letter before it ever found its way to you to begin with.” She returned Corvo’s glare with one of her own. “Don’t think I don’t notice you making faces back there. Every time you do, our Lady Empress here winces. At this rate, you’ll give her wrinkles. Think of the Empire, Corvo. Save them the horror.”

A small smile played at the corner of Emily’s lips.

_Interesting_ , he thought. There was some aspect of Billie’s relationship with the Empress he’d clearly missed. He raised an eyebrow at Billie, but she only shook her head. _Interesting indeed._ His curiosity was piqued.

Corvo shrugged back from the wall and walked to a window without a word. He stood just to the side of it, never in full view of any errant assassins who might be lingering below, though all that moved below him was dark waves under a deep black sky. He turned something over in his mind—that much was clear from the distant look to his eyes, the tense way he raised his shoulders and rubbed the back of his hand like it burned him.

Emily took a square of cotton from the tray on the table beside her and sprayed something on it, then gently laid it over his cut.

“Ah!” He jerked back.

Emily winced. “Anton said it might hurt. I apologize.”

“What was that?”

“An acid, one of his creations. It’s supposed to prevent sepsis.” She picked up the small, amber-colored glass bottle and looked at it dubiously. “Another one of his plainly crazy yet secretly brilliant ideas, no doubt. Do you think you can stomach it for a few moments more?”

From out of the corner of his eye, he saw Corvo snort, then return his gaze to the window.

“If I must,” he said grimly.

She nodded, wet the cloth again, and pressed it to his skin. “Hold that just there, if you could.”

“How long?” He said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, just a couple minutes. I’ll ring for tea in the meantime.” She stood with a wince, rubbing her hip, and padded over to a row of bells mounted on the wall near the broad double door at the entrance to her office. She rang the one nearest her.

A few moments later, a knock came at the door. Corvo left his post near the window and stalked over to answer it. “Yes?” He growled. A moment of silence, then he said: “Tea for three. As the Empress likes it.”

Emily, out of sight of the door but not of Corvo, frowned and crossed her arms over her chest in silent admonition.

Corvo sighed. “Four, then.”

Corvo went back to the window and said nothing more. He twitched aside the curtain to get a better look at something, though what he could see in the dead of night he had no idea. Corvo, apparently, satisfied, let the curtain fall closed again.

He pressed the cotton pad to his throat just a bit harder. He was beginning to enjoy the sting. It felt real in a way that little else in this bizarre situation did. For here was, finally, impossibly, in Dunwall. And there was Emily, impossibly real, and warm, and kind. And there was… there was Corvo, who refused to look at him, or speak to him, or even acknowledge that they were in the same room. That Corvo was real, too.

He tried to keep his observations of the man circumspect, but every half glance in Corvo’s direction made him hungry for another. He wanted to stare at this severe, imposing man, the barely contained storm he’d travelled all this way to see, and map every scrap of him on the inside of skull. He had forgotten so many things; this, at least, he wanted to be sure to remember.

“So.” Billie cleared her throat. “Nice security you have here.”

Emily couldn’t seem to find a place to put her hands. She began to pace, her steps little more than whispers across the floor.

Billie’s gaze roamed about the room in careful, silent assessment of its safety. “Iron-banded doors made from solid oak. Windows all barred, all locked. An Empress apparently hidden from her staff.” She leaned back and cast a sly look at Corvo over her shoulder. “Will you taste her tea, too, when it comes?”

Emily continued to pace, her eyes on the floor. “Don’t tease him, Billie. They’re necessary precautions.”

“Against people like _you_ ,” Corvo said. His voice carried a sharp, steely edge.

“Against people like Delilah.” Emily stopped her pacing and gave Corvo a severe look. “That was our understanding.”

Corvo shrugged.

“At least you don’t have any of those Jindosh monstrosities prowling around here,” Billie said.

Emily and Corvo shared a look, and Emily turned away.

“I refused,” Emily said. “I’ve met that man—and I will not have anything he created in my home.”

“Your ‘home’ is the seat of the Empire,” Corvo muttered. His tone was tired, worn, like they’d had this conversation too many times before.

But Emily refused to take the bait. “Leave it be, Corvo. I won’t discuss this again.”

_Ah_. Corvo, so outwardly proud, was terrified. _And well he should be—the man had already lost one Empress._

“Corvo’s paranoia is justified,” he said.

Emily ceased her pacing and turned to him, open-mouthed. Billie’s eyes went wide, and she shook her head silently, _No._ Corvo went completely still.

He pulled the cotton pad from his throat. It caught on the dried blood, and he winced. He looked at his fingers. They, too, were sticky with drying blood. So much from a cut so small.

He didn’t know what had inspired him to open his mouth.

A desire to feel Corvo’s eyes on him, maybe.

“It doesn’t matter who wears the title—there’s always someone waiting to move against the person who sits on the throne. Corvo is right to be afraid.”

Corvo crossed the room with such startling speed he hardly had time to take a breath. Then that familiar hand was lifting him again, fist tangled in the collar of his jacket. He felt that familiar breath on his throat, smelled again his fear and anger.

“If you know of a specific threat,” Corvo hissed, “you will tell me.”

Billie was on her feet. Emily put a hand on her father’s shoulder and tried to pull him away.

“He’s a guest!” She shouted.

Corvo wheeled on her. “He’s a _threat_.”

“Corvo—“

“ _He’s the_ fucking _Outsider, Emily.”_

Silence.

Corvo stared at him, his face just inches away. He could see the man’s eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. His skin, dark by birth and sun both, was unusually pale, as if he hadn’t stepped outside the Tower in weeks. The stubble across his jaw was patchy and several days old.

This close, he could almost taste Corvo’s barely swallowed terror on his own tongue.

He knew he should have been terrified—he’d seen Corvo kill countless of those he’d determined to be a threat, after all, and he’d never once seen him hesitate in doing so. He knew with a first-hand certainty that Corvo was capable of immediate, explosive violence.

But he felt only sad. Here was a man who had suffered immeasurably and who had levied his own share of suffering on too many others to count. The only languages he knew were those of anger and fear, and he’d been steeped in them too long to become fluent in any others.

“I’m not the Outsider any longer.” The words came out a whisper, quieter than he intended.

Corvo had never been a good man, but he’d always been interesting.

Corvo’s hand began to shake. He loosened his grip on his collar and slowly lowered him back to the floor. Then he turned on his heel and left the room. He didn’t even slam the door behind him.

Several seconds passed before Emily let out a heaving sigh. She pushed her dark hair off of her forehead and stepped forward. She straightened his collar, eyes anywhere but on his face. He was surprised to find that that they were the same height.

Emily had always loomed large in his memory, taller even than Delilah. He remembered her as her knew her last, a creature made of shadow and void, long-limbed and crawling, determined to right as many wrongs as she could, even if she had to become a beast to do it.

“I can’t apologize on his behalf,” she said at last. “But I must beg you not to think too unkindly of him. This—you—it’s been quite a shock for him. He doesn’t handle change well, even less so lately, and you, well. You are change embodied, aren’t you?”

She met his eyes and gave him a tiny smile.

A voice came from the doorway. “P-pardon me, your Ladyship. I’ve tea for you.”

Emily jumped, then seemed to catch herself and frowned. She smoothed down the front of her jacket and went to the door.

“Thank you, Marie,” he heard her say, then heard the soft click of the door swinging shut.

Emily returned with a tray laden with tea and treats. She set in on the low little table in the center of the sitting area and settled down on the floor beside it with a groan, tucking her feet beneath her. She took a little pie from the tray and ate it in silence.

Then she looked at him and Billie in turn and raised her eyebrows. “Sit, please.”

Billie settled gingerly on the floor beside her. She sat close enough to be familiar, but not so close as to be improprietous in the presence of her empress. Emily handed her a small plate heaped with pink and green frosted cakes no larger than a five-dollar coin. Billie put up a hand and shook her hand and instead took a small handful of dried apricots.

“I see you haven’t rid yourself of that sweet tooth,” Billie said, and gave Emily a sly grin.

“You haven’t been gone _that_ long, you know. Such a sea change in personality takes time.” She returned Billie’s smile and took another bite of her pie. “Won’t you sit?” She said to him, mouth full, and motioned to the spot on the floor beside her.

He did as she bid, though he felt uncomfortable all the while, certain he was intruding on some private ritual she and Billie shared and only let him witness out of social necessity. But it had been a long, long day, and he was pitifully tired, and his mind was well-occupied with thoughts of his own beside.

Emily poured tea for the three of them. She lingered over the fourth, then set the tea pot down, leaving it cup empty.

He took a tentative sip and had to stop himself from recoiling with his entire body. Tannic bitterness bloomed on his tongue. “This is… this is truly vile. What is this?”

Emily tittered. Even Billie cracked a smile.

“The Empress’ midnight special—over-steeped black tea, served straight up.” Billie pushed a little pitcher toward him with her index finger and took another palm full of dried apricots. “Milk helps.”

He lifted the pitcher tentatively and sniffed. He had no memory of what milk tasted like, but it smelled well enough. He poured it up to the brim of his teacup, then took another sip. Awful, wretched, almost certainly a crime—but it was a hair more palatable, at least.

“How can you stomach this?” He asked, incredulous.

Emily sighed and took a long drink. “Takes a fair bit of work to run an empire, it turns out. You can’t imagine the paperwork.”

Billie shook her head. “You don’t get enough sleep.”

“I sleep plenty,” Emily huffed. “Four, sometimes even five hours a night.”

“You’ll work yourself to death if you keep that up. Then who’ll take up the tiller of empire, hm?”

Emily squeezed her eyes shut and groaned. “Not you, too. My advisors are already on me to produce an heir. I’ve told them to bugger off ten ways to Sunday, but they won’t take the hint.”

“You could always kill them.”

Emily nearly choked on her pie. “I’ll be sure to call on you should that ever be necessary,” she said finally.

They sat in amiable silence. He drank his horrible tea and wondered for the thousandth time how any of this had happened. He put a tentative hand to his throat again and probed around the edges of his wound. The hurt was dull now, distant. Tolerable and familiar. And the cut was shallow, or at least not so deep that he needed stitches. Entirely bearable.

And yet, he ached. He didn’t know why.

Emily broke the silence with the question that had been lingering in the room from the moment her personal guards had dragged him and Billie up the Tower’s many staircases and thrown them here into her office—where Corvo had been waiting.

“What are you doing here?” She asked.

Emily had never been afraid of him. Not in the void, and not now. Even when he’d appeared before her tonight, unbidden and unexpected, a creature of pale flesh and red blood, she’d only taken a sharp inhale of breath and widened her eyes.

He blinked. “Billie’s already told—“

She interrupted him. “No, I mean _here_. What are you doing in Dunwall? Why did you come to the Tower? You could have gone anywhere.”

He looked at his hands. They’d been cold the day Billie had carried him out of Void. Now they were warmed by the cup of tea he held between them.

“I know no one else,” he said at last.

Emily raised a brow and cast a quick, skeptical look Billie’s way. Billie shrugged, clearly saying, _I don’t know, ask the kid._

“Explain,” Emily said.

He took a deep breath. “I watched thousands and thousands of people from the Void, but I’ve spoken with few. I brought fewer still into—into my realm. Of that meager group, only the people in this room—“ his breath caught, “—and Corvo yet live.”

“Oh.” Emily looked down into her tea, a deep frown creasing the corners of mouth. “And…” She hesitated. “And you chose not to remain with Billie… why?”

He gave her a small, ironic smile. “I get terribly seasick. An unfortunately recent discovery.”

She looked at with an eyebrow raised.

He shook his head. “I wanted to be here.” He rubbed at the blood on his fingers. Every time he turned his head, his undershirt pulled at his skin. He resisted the urge to touch the wound on his neck again.

Finally, he met her eyes. They were heavy-lidded with exhaustion, he realized, for all that she pretended at alertness. He would be but one more responsibility on her already overburdened shoulders.

The fear came on like a faint—sudden, consuming, suffocating. His stomach churned with nausea. His hands began to shake, and he had to set the tea down in fear he might spill it across the rug. These unfamiliar, unwelcome, and wholly human feelings—they were unbearable.

Still, he had to ask.

“May I stay?”

She blinked, and her eyes softened. She reached across the table and squeezed his arm. He felt the warmth of her fingers through his jacket. “Of course you may stay.”


End file.
